weight loss well help knee pain arthritis: Study

Winston-Salem, North Carolina – researchers at Wake Forrest University have determined that inflammation of the knee along with arthritic pain can be reduced if the person both loses weight and regularly exercises. Really? The “Sherlock’s” at the University concluded the obvious regarding the malady known as osteoarthritis which the cartilage in the knee gets damaged giving way to arthritis and inflammation.

Obviously, a person pushing a greater amount of body weight will be stressing his or her knees more than they would do otherwise. Conversely, de-chunking their bodies of excess weight will ease the pressure put on the knees and result in reduced pain. The study builds on prior findings that proved that being overweight increases the risk of developing osteoarthritis by two-fold and being obese increased the risk four-fold.

“While both the exercise and the diet interventions separately were beneficial, the combination of the two was superior in virtually every outcome,” Stephen Messier, who led the study at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said.

All of the patients had developed osteoarthritis and their progress was measured over an eighteen month period. At the end of the study, the exercise-only group had lost on average 4 pounds of weight, the diet only group had lost 20 pounds, and the diet and exercise group 23 pounds. The latter group experienced the best results in reduced inflammation and knee stiffness.

“No one expects diet and exercise to have a huge impact” on osteoarthritis, Dr. Amanda Nelson, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Thurston Arthritis Research Center, said.

“The fact that most of the improvements were modest is what we would expect to see.”